Place:Ayton, North Riding of Yorkshire, England

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NameAyton
Alt namesGreat Aytonsource: principal settlement of the parish
Little Ayton
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates54.496°N 1.129°W
Located inNorth Riding of Yorkshire, England     ( - 1974)
Also located inYorkshire, England    
North Yorkshire, England     (1974 - )
See alsoLangbaurgh West Wapentake, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandwapentake in which it was located
Stokesley Rural, North Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district of which the civil parish was a part 1894-1974
Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, Englanddistrict municipality in which it has been located since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


Ayton is the name of the ancient parish; Great Ayton is the principal settlement of that parish. Wikipedia prefers to speak about settlements rather than geographical areas under the same local administration. There are two further settlements in Ayton parish: Little Ayton and Nunthorpe.

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Since 1974 Great Ayton has been a village and civil parish in the Hambleton District of North Yorkshire, England, on the edge of the North York Moors. It lies 7 miles (11.3 km) southeast of Middlesbrough and 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Stokesley on the border with the unitary authorities of Redcar and Cleveland and Middlesbrough. According to the 2011 UK Census, it has a population of 4,629.

"The population is now for the most part agricultural, though there are several quarries and iron ore mines in the parish. At the beginning of the 19th century Great Ayton was a manufacturing village containing three tanyards, a comb and horn manufactory, a common brewery, an oil-mill, a water corn-mill, a tallow chandlery and a brick and tile kiln. The tanneries were still in existence in 1849. (Source: Victoria County History, published 1923, on Ayton, cited below.

The village was the boyhood home of Captain Cook, the British explorer and navigator, who was born in nearby Marton.

Prior to the nationwide municipal reorganization of 1974, Great Ayton was located in Stokesley Rural District. Historically, it was an the ecclesiastical parish in Langbaurgh West Wapentake.


Research Tips

This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the North Riding to be found online. The volumes are divided into sections by wapentake (early divisions of the county) and the parishes within each wapentake follow in alphabetical order. The links above open to the indexes covering all the wapentakes in the volume.
  • GENUKI has a page on all three ridings of Yorkshire and pages for each of the ancient or ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each ancient parish there is a list of the settlements (townships and chapelries) within it and brief description of each. Many of these secondary settlements became civil parishes during the latter half of the 19th century.
These notes are based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration era. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and the submitter is very firm about his copyright, but this should not stop anyone from reading the material.
  • The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Yorkshire North Riding, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions which also include historical population and area statistics. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.
  • Map of the North Riding divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Map of North Riding divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Another provider of maps is the National Library of Scotland. In this index the Scottish provision precedes the English one, but the choice of maps for England is still quite vast.
  • Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.
  • In March 2018 Ancestry announced that its file entitled "Yorkshire, England: Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1873" has been expanded to include another 94 parishes (across the three ridings) and expected it to be expanded further during the year. The entries are taken from previously printed parish registers.
  • The chapter of the Victoria County History, published 1923, dealing with Ayton parish.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Great Ayton. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.